He's sure they'll love their new city

New U.S. citizen hopes to bring family to South Bend by spring.

New U.S. citizen hopes to bring family to South Bend by spring.

October 31, 2006

Gerardo Ramirez is just sure that his children will love South Bend. "There are many things they are going to enjoy," he says. "Twenty-four hours a day won't be enough to keep them busy." His children, who live in Mexico City, love keeping busy after school. They go to music and computer classes at private academies. Schools in Mexico often don't have the resources to offer students much variety in after-school sports or fine arts. "Here they'll be able to do all that and it's free," Ramirez says. Ramirez, who became a U.S. citizen this month, hopes his wife and four children will be able to join him here by next spring. He has three sons, ages 14, 9, and 5, and one daughter, age 12. "We are so excited," Ramirez says of his family. "My children are so happy. They've been following the whole process step by step." The "process" of asking the U.S. government to allow his wife and children to come here, to South Bend, to live with him has already begun. As soon as he became a citizen, he filled out the application. "I remember when I passed the citizenship exam," Ramirez says. "I was driving back to South Bend on the highway and I pulled over at a gas station and I called my family. And I told them I did it!" Ramirez says he's never spent much time with his family except while visiting them, because he's always lived here and they've always lived in Mexico. What he's experiencing now is a time he has been waiting for since his first child was born, and it's about the happiest time of his life. "No me ha caído el veinte," he says, using a Spanish expression that, loosely translated, means, "It hasn't registered yet." "I don't think I realize what this means, all the changes that are going to take place in our lives," Ramirez says. "Inside of me I feel satisfied, I feel happy, this is what I've been looking for for so long." Ramirez now rents an upstairs floor with a friend of his on Wilber Street. "I'm thinking of renting something new until they settle down," he says. "Then later we can all look together for something permanent. I want them to decide where they want to live." Ramirez was born in the village of Tamazulapan in the southern state of Oaxaca. Of seven children, he was the middle one. As a young man he worked as a mechanic in his father's shop and started medical school at age 18 (not uncommon in Mexico). But after a year, he took a break and, the economy leaving much to wish for, decided to move to California to work the fields. "I do miss Mexico," he says. "My roots are there ... it's hard to pull yourself away from your roots. "My family, my people, the places where I played ... my friends, whom I haven't seen ever since." In 1999, a friend he'd known in California encouraged him to move to South Bend, where there was plenty of work. He's been here ever since, making regular trips to Mexico to see his family. Ramirez works the 3-11 p.m. shift at a North Liberty factory. In his spare time, he watches soccer on TV every once in a while and is in his fifth year of learning English at the Robinson Community Learning Center in South Bend. His children, too, are learning English in Mexico, and Ramirez is sure that they'll have no trouble adapting. He says they'll even enjoy the snow. His wife, a dentist by profession, is the intellectual type, he says, and will find plenty to do here. "I like South Bend," he says. "It's a calm place, a very good place." To read a Spanish version of this story, visit www.southbendtribune.com